Re: [fun] [homegate] HOMENET working group proposal

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On Jul 2, 2011, at 9:31 PM, Doug Barton wrote:

> On 07/01/2011 14:17, Keith Moore wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Whenever people talk about the Internet as if it were just about
>> "access to content", I have to wonder.    The Internet has always
>> been more about conversation than content.
> 
> The overwhelming majority of Internet users are consumers of content. Some of that content is stuff like Skype, instant messaging, etc.

The point is that the Internet is not primarily about producers in the center doling out content to users at the edge.  Granted, netflix uses a lot of bandwidth.  But a lot of what has driven use of the Internet, and continues to drive it, is users engaging in conversation of one form or another.  This was true when email and Usenet were the apps consuming the most bandwidth, and it's true today for Skype, Facebook, Youtube, IM, blogs, etc.

Meanwhile, traditional producer-to-consumer media channels of all types are steadily dying.   They tend to blame it on copyright violation, or "free" access to content on the Internet.  The real problem is that most of what they produce is crap.  They're stuck in an old model that says that a few people should decide what's good for everybody else, but now people are in a position to decide what's good for themselves and/or create their own content.

> The overwhelming majority of businesses that make the Internet work are the content providers, and the ISPs that enable the consumers of that content to reach it.
> 
> Failure to recognize these 2 critical facts leads to producing standards documents that have no relevance in the real world.

Insistence on sticking to anachronistic models of "the real world" will do the same thing.   

Keith